Will it fit Liam? I almost asked. Liam wasn’t anti-prom; he just wanted to be Queen. “He hasn’t said anything to me.”
Aly didn’t look convinced. Or satisfied.
Change of subject. “Could I borrow a couple Tylenol?” I said. My headache was carving a canyon in my skull.
“Sure.” She clawed through her bag again. “Is Excedrin okay?”
Excedrin. Ecstasy. Anything to dull the pain, blunt the memories.
She emptied two caplets into my palm.
“I’ll walk you to the cafeteria,” Aly said.
She waited at the drinking fountain while I knocked back the pills. As we started down the hall, Aly continued, “Maybe you could mention it to him. Drop a hint. Plant a subliminal suggestion in that thick skull of his.”
“Like it would penetrate,” I muttered.
“I know. Tie it to a brick.”
At the turnoff to the cafeteria Aly slowed and stopped. She hesitated a long moment. “He isn’t taking someone else, is he?”
“What?”
“Hel-loo.” Aly angled her head, like, tune in, Re. “He seems distracted lately, even more than usual. Like he’s withdrawing from me, from everyone. Keeping his distance. I don’t know. He’s done this before, but now it’s ... it’s different.” She trailed off, her gaze drifting over my shoulder. “Like he’s involved with someone else?”
Yeah, himself, I didn’t say. “There isn’t anyone else.”
Aly bit her lip again.
“Aly, I swear.”
“You’d tell me if there was, wouldn’t you, Re? You wouldn’t keep something like that from me. I mean, I’d want to know. Even if it hurt.”
“I wouldn’t keep anything from you.” That lie tripped off my tongue too easily. I’d never hurt her, not on purpose. Why didn’t she ask Liam? Why didn’t she talk to him? They were best friends.
Her face relaxed a little and she gave me a hug. “What would I do without you?” She smiled. Squeezing my arm, she flitted away.
Who’d said that to me earlier? Elise? Liam? I couldn’t remember. Anyone else would be honored to receive a double dose of trust in one day. So why did I just feel used?
Chapter 16
A voice echoed in my ears. Chris’s voice, coming from Chris’s body, which was sending out sound waves and heat waves next to me. “Hey,” he said. Whole language abandoned me. Fortunately, my English book chose that moment to streak off the top shelf of my locker and crash to the floor. As I bent to pick it up, Chris did too, and we cracked skulls.
“Ow!” we yelped in unison.
“Spaz,” Chris added under his breath.
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Not you. Me.” His hand reached for my forehead. “You okay?”
I flinched. Reflex, I guess, but he looked offended. Hurt. Like I thought he had AIDS or something.
“Sorry.” What was it about him? Whenever he was near, I turned into a biohazard.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said. “Hoping you had to stop at your locker after your Skills for Living class. I wanted to talk to you.”
Okay, this was weird. Right out of Tales of the Unbelievable. How did he know this was my locker? How did he know I took Skills for Living? Did he also know I’d been obsessing about him, that he’d been showing up in my dreams at night? That canoe was getting waterlogged. “Talk about what?” I asked, digging through my locker for ...I don’t know what. A life vest?
Chris moved around to my other side, the side where my frontal lobe wasn’t protruding over my eye. “I’ve been asking around about you and nobody seems to know who you are.”
I snorted. Big surprise.
“Except Shannon Eiber.”
I tensed. “What did she say?”
Chris gulped.
My eyes slit. “What?”
“She just said you’re a little ... stuck up.”
“Stuck up!” My voice shrilled. Is that what everyone thought, that I was stuck up? A snob? A bitch?
“Personally, I don’t see it,” Chris put in quickly. “It takes one to know one, right?”
All I could do was shake my head. It made me feel like crying, though. That wasn’t why I didn’t talk to people. I wasn’t stuck up.
Chris leaned in closer and cooed suggestively, “You’re like a mystery.”
My face fried — literally, you could smell the smoke. “Oh yeah. That’s me. A mystery, even unto to herself.” Oh how lame.
He smiled. His arm snaked behind my head and came to rest on the frame of my locker door, the space around us closing in. Intimate like. He added, “I’ve had to follow you around to get my real question answered.”
Huh? “What question?”
“Are you going with anyone?”
I might’ve laughed if he hadn’t looked serious. “Serious?”
“That guy who drives you to school in the jazzed car. The one who lets you off in the back of the parking lot. Is he your boyfriend?”
This time I did laugh. Hysterically. I doubled over in laughter, like a donkey with asthma. I couldn’t stop laughing; I couldn’t catch my breath.
Chris strummed his fingers over the vent on my locker door. “I didn’t think it was that funny,” he said.
“I’m sorry.” I gasped for air, reaching up to steady myself on his chest. I withdrew my hand fast.
“If he is, tell me and I’ll back off. I just thought maybe, you know —”
“You thought what?” I sobered fast.
“I thought I’d take the chance. Ask you out. But if you’re with someone, that’s cool.”
“The guy who drops me off is my brother.”
His eyebrows shot up. “No shit?”
“None whatsoever.”
We both grinned and dropped our eyes. I tried to glance up at him coyly, the way Shannon Eiber does. Would have. Without warning the locker door swung open and crushed Chris’s hand between it and the wall.
Bone crunched and Chris went, “Geeawd!”
“Oh my God.” I reached for his arm.
He lurched away. He shook off the pain, dancing around, while I stood there bouncing fists off my thighs, apologizing, dying inside.
He rubbed his hand against his chest and said, “So would you go out with me?”
Unbelievable. “Are you a masochist?” I asked. He had to be. He was crazy. Did he mean it?
Through apparent agony, his eyes answered the question. He meant it.
“No,” I said, “but thanks anyway. I’m too dangerous. Not allowed to make human contact.” That’s what my brain said. What came out of my mouth was, “Okay. When?”
“Um . . .” He hesitated. “Saturday night?” He gave his hand a final shake. “There’s this party up in Creighton. Sort of a rave, but underground. You know the kind.”
“Sure,” I lied. “Oh, wait.” My heart sank. “I can’t Saturday. I have to baby — work. I have to work.”
His face changed.
Not again. This might be my last chance, my only chance. “I could find someone to fill in for me, though. I really do have to work. Or did. I mean, I can go. I’ll figure something out.”
“Yeah?” His eyes lit up. “Cool. Okay. So I’ll pick you up around, what? Like seven?”
Six, seven. Could we leave now? “Let me give you my address.” I fished in my purse for a pen.
“I know where you live. I’ve been following you, remember?” He jabbed my arm with his good hand. Then swaggered off.
I drooled all over myself. This was insane, agreeing to go out with him. Scary. What if —
What if what? What could it hurt? One date. How close could we get? Only as close as I allowed.
The minute I got home I called Aly. “Could you baby-sit for me Saturday night? For the Materas?”
“The Materas?” She let out a short laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding. Don’t you remember what happened the last time I sat for them?”
Oh yeah. Aly used to be their regular sit
ter until she got bored one night and asked a few friends over. David and Elise walked in on them watching Pay Per View on their big screen TV. It’s not like she was having a wild party or anything, but Aly was now officially blacklisted by the Materas’. Her loss had been my gain. After that night I’d become their exclusive sitter.
How could I have forgotten? Because my brain wasn’t operating on all cylinders.
“I couldn’t do it anyway,” Aly said. “I promised my mom I’d go to this designer trunk show with her Saturday night. Whoo hoo.”
“Do you know anyone else?” I asked; pleaded.
She thought a minute. “What about Brit? No, forget that. One look at her piercings and tats and Elise would freak. C.J.? I could ask, but she’s probably going out. She’s hot for this senior over at Lincoln.”
Aly was silent for a moment. “Wow, I can’t think of anyone.”
This sense of hopelessness seeped into my soul. There went my first — and last — date.
Aly added, “Did you remind Liam about Saturday?”
“No. I just got home.” Where’d I’d be rotting in solitary the rest of my life.
Thursday night while Elise and David were off exploring their yin and yang at yoga, I was rediscovering sleep. The Materas came home to find me curled in a fetal position in front of their big screen TV. David had to shake me awake. How humiliating. Mirelle and Cody were still up watching TV, not even changed into their pajamas. Some sitter I was. The house could crumble around me and I wouldn’t choke on the dust.
I kept apologizing, but Elise said it was all right, she understood. There was an undertone to her voice, though. A note of disapproval.
I tried to refuse the money, but David forced it on me. It wasn’t as much as I usually got, but even so, a dollar less an hour was still more than I deserved.
By the time I got home, I’d decided rather than deposit the money in my car fund, I’d buy toys for the kids. Pay for my guilt trip. I opened my bedroom door and Luna attacked me. “You’ll never guess what’s going on.” She yanked me down to the bed.
“I’m guessing you broke into my room while I wasn’t here. You’re as bad as Dad.” I kicked off my boots. It was early for Luna to be in evening wear; the moon hadn’t even waxed poetic.
She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Teri Lynn’s coming here.”
“To the house?” My eyes bulged.
“No. Into town.” Luna’s coral-colored lips curved in a wide arc. “There’s a sales convention over the weekend and she’s giving a presentation on Monday, so she thought we might get together afterward. Have dinner.” She bounded to her feet and flounced toward the mirror.
“How old is this Teri Lynn? What does she do exactly? How do you know she’s legit?” I sounded like a parental unit.
Luna slid into my desk chair in front of her lighted mirror. Uncapping a tube of mascara, she answered, “She’s twenty-seven. She owns her own consulting company. They do diversity training for law enforcement agencies. I’ve talked to her on the phone.”
On the phone? I spread-eagled backward on the bed. “Wow. So, what’s she like?”
“Like a person.”
I scoffed. “No, I mean is she independently wealthy or something?”
“Mmm.” A smile infused Luna’s voice. She turned to me and added, “I have to go shopping. I’m not about to wear Goodwill rags the first time I meet her. What time are we going Saturday?”
Saturday. Saturday night. I stared up at the blank ceiling. “I have a date Saturday night. Or I did.”
“What!” Luna gasped. She rushed over and flopped down next to me. “Who with? Someone I know? Tell me everything.”
The joy I’d been confining to mini bursts finally broke through the clouds. “You don’t know him, I don’t think. Chris Garazzo?”
“Doesn’t sound familiar.”
“He’s new.” Brand new.
“What does he look like?” she asked, eyes sparkling.
“Like a person.” We sneered at each other. I sighed wistfully. “Make that a god.”
Luna squealed.
“There’s a problem, though.” I sat up and hugged my knees. “Major setback. I’m supposed to baby-sit Saturday night and I can’t find anyone to fill in.”
“You just did.” Luna pushed to her feet. “I owe you. What time is Chris picking me up?” She twisted her head to grin over her shoulder. “Just kidding. When do I have to be at the Materas’?”
I hesitated. I don’t know why. I’d just call Elise and tell her I had other plans. My busy social life. I’d found a replacement sitter.
She’d ask who.
I’d say my brother.
She’d say fine.
No, she wouldn’t. Elise would never let a stranger in her house. She’d never leave her kids alone with a person she didn’t know, especially a guy.
A glint of moonlight reflected off Luna’s shining face. Her eager face.
Liam did owe me. It’d only be the one time. Maybe I could work it so Elise and David wouldn’t know. Why not? Anyone else in my position would go. “You’re on,” I said. My brain amped up. I suddenly felt excited. “I don’t want you to arrive at the Materas’ until after they leave, though. I’ll only be gone for a couple of hours. You’ll be out of there before Elise and David get home. Wait. You can’t come until I put the kids to bed. Otherwise, they’ll rat me out.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Luna resumed her seat at the mirror.
“And I’ll tell Chris to pick me up at the Materas’. That way he won’t come here and risk having an encounter-of-the-freakazoid-kind with you-know-who.” Studly unit. “I’ll put the kids to bed early; ask Chris to pick me up at eight-thirty.”
“It’s settled.” Luna slapped her thighs and twirled on the desk chair. “What time are we going shopping Saturday? You’re going to need new clothes.”
Saturday. Lunch. Prom. Sculptor. “Aly said to remind you about Saturday. Some art project at a studio? You’re supposed to pick her up at one?”
“Is that this Saturday?” Luna’s eyes met mine through the mirror. Her face sagged and she sighed heavily. “Sorry, Re. How about Sunday? We could go shopping on Sunday, for me anyway. What time do the stores open? Eleven? Twelve?”
I was stuck on Aly. “Are you thinking about asking Aly to the prom this year? Because she really wants to go. She already has a dress picked out.”
“A dress,” Luna repeated flatly. She crossed her legs and hunched over, holding her stomach. “Know what I’d really like, Re? What I’d love is to go to the prom as me. In my own dress. Get my hair and nails done. Rent a limo. Rent a date.” She lifted her head. “Chris doesn’t have a brother, does he?”
I must’ve looked freaked.
“Just kidding.” Luna straightened. She lifted a brush and ran it slowly down her wig, staring vacantly at her image in the mirror.
Luna. Liam. Liam at the Materas’. A knot of fear twisted in my stomach. Why? I’d be fine.
I cast it off. This was the first time I’d ever felt such happiness, such hopefulness about my life. About me. My future.
What could happen? One night. What could possibly go wrong?
Chapter 17
I arrived at the Materas’ fifteen minutes early, as usual. Elise said, “Wow, you look nice.” She ushered me inside, scanning me from head to toe. “You’ve done something different. What is it? Your hair?”
“Yeah, I got it cut. Just the ends.”
“Where do you go? I need a trim. Last time I went to the Mane Event, they butchered me.”
“Um . . . ,” I stalled. What could I say? Chez Luna? “A friend did it.”
“Really? She’s good.” Elise turned me around in a circle. “Tell her if she wants to expand her client base, I’d be happy to pay.”
“I will.” Like that’d ever happen.
Elise said, “David has a pager now, so I added that number to the speed dial.” David appeared behind her, proffering her coat, and she slipped it
on. “We’ll be back by eleven-thirty, at the latest. I bought you some NoDoz. They’re on top of the refrigerator.” Elise smiled. “That was a joke.”
She didn’t sound like she was joking. “I won’t fall asleep. I promise.”
“Make sure you lock the door,” David said.
I always locked the door. They knew that.
Elise rattled off the particulars: Where they’d be, what there was to eat, blah, blah, blah. It took forever. Just go! I screamed inside. Get out of here.
Finally, through my peephole in the window blinds, I watched their Ford Explorer back down the driveway. “Can we watch Monsters, Inc.?” Cody shoved the DVD at me.
“Sure.” I followed Cody and Mirelle to the TV and sat cross-legged between them, which wasn’t easy in the tight jeans Luna had forced me to wear. They were white, the only white thing I owned. Why did she insist I wear white?
The movie dragged on interminably. I kept looking at my wrist, which was dumb because I’d forgotten to wear my watch. I did brush my teeth, I think. Finally, the outtakes at the end.
I scrabbled to my feet. “Okay, time for bed.”
“Already?” Cody and Mirelle whined. Mirelle added, “We didn’t even get our snack.”
“You can eat it in bed,” I said.
They widened eyes at each other. “All right!” Cody cheered.
Elise would kill me for letting them have food in bed. Oh, well. I might not live through this night, anyway. Mirelle and Cody hustled to their rooms. The baby was out cold in my arms, sleeping like a lamb. I put him down first. As I was digging out a couple of Rice Krispie treats from the pan in the kitchen, the front doorbell rang.
“Shit,” I hissed. The oven clock read eight-twenty. I was running late.
“I’ll get it,” Cody’s voice echoed from the back.
“No!” I hollered.
He flew past me, his footsteps thundering down the hall. I caught up as Cody flung open the front door.
“Uh, hi,” Liam greeted him. His eyes raised to meet mine.
“You’re early,” I said.
“I am?” Liam checked his watch.
Cody asked, “Who are you?”